


this isn't valentine's day

by SalomeWeil



Series: holiday season [7]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Arizona Statehood Day, Beach House, F/M, Ina Garten - Freeform, One Shot, Rose Petals, Series, Southwestern food, Suitcases, The Hamptons, Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day Fluff, beach cottage, cactus, overnight bags, part of a series, rated M for language only, shut up I tag what I want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-28 18:48:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13910031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SalomeWeil/pseuds/SalomeWeil
Summary: When Kylo finally gets Rey away for the surprise trip he gave her for Christmas, he learns one important detail about celebrating holidays with her...





	this isn't valentine's day

**Author's Note:**

> On the characters:  
> I've tagged several names as being characters in this particular one-shot, but most are only tagged because they are mentioned in conversation. The only two characters that actually appear or have dialogue are Rey and Kylo.
> 
> On the holiday:  
> I think Valentine's Day can be a really sweet, sentimental holiday, particularly to celebrate with friends and one's children. Unfortunately, most of the time, it's a shit holiday jam-packed with disappointment and the promise of a lifetime of disappointments yet to come. Come celebrate Arizona Statehood Day with me instead. We have better food and terrible films where at least something interesting happens. 
> 
> If you must insist on celebrating Valentine's Day it with a sweetheart, at least have a conversation beforehand and pick something achievable and useful for both of you to give one another. Like...socks. Or go on a hike together. Or make a donation to a favorite charity. Or work a soup kitchen together. Don't let it be about some hyped up, fake version of romantic love. Have it be about real love, in the real world. Providing for each other. Providing for others side-by-side. Sharing the excess love you've generated by loving one another with the world in which you live.

____________________________________________

 

“I _hate_ this fucking holiday,” Rey groaned as she collapsed onto a sofa. The remark wasn’t directed at anyone, especially since she’d gotten to explore first after Kylo left her alone to grab their bags.

 

A three day weekend in the Hamptons, at what she had presumed was an Airbnb, and of course since it was the weekend right before Valentine’s Day - hateful holiday - the owner of the cottage had left complimentary chocolates in an obnoxiously loud heart-shaped box, along with a bouquet of mixed, bright pink and red flowers on the coffee table to greet them.  

 

It was so cliche, so obvious, so disgustingly capitalist and vapid -

 

“Rey?” Kylo’s voice echoed through the front hall and she jumped back up from the extremely comfortable, stylish sofa to go meet him.

 

“I was in the living room,” she replied, and reached out to take her bag from him, stretching up on her toes to meet his kiss. He didn’t let the bag go and instead deepened the kiss before lifting both their bags in order to wrap his arms around her shoulders and draw her closer. The bags in his hands created an unpleasant pressure against her back, but the way he was kissing her slowly eroded her discomfort until she’d brought her hands up to his jacket and dug her fingers in as her lips searched after his in near-desperation.

 

He managed to lift his head long enough to ask, “Bedroom?” Then his lips were crashing down on hers again, his hands dropping their bags in the hallway as he lifted her up against him and walked them towards the back of the house.

 

Rey laughed some against his mouth as she gladly accepted his attentions and wrapped her arms around his neck. She kept her legs hooked at his waist, secure despite the new distance between her ass and the floor.

 

Kylo would never, ever drop her, she was sure -

 

“Oof!”

 

She landed on the softest bedspread in the world, her back sinking into the thick down comforter like it was a mound of freshly fallen snow. Ok, so maybe he would drop her. Not that she was complaining…

 

He followed her down after quickly kicking off his shoes and slipping out of his coat. His hands traveled the length of each of her legs, removing her shoes one at a time while he pressed kisses to her thighs. She closed her eyes and relaxed further, enjoying the smattering of afternoon sun through the sheer curtains, and inhaling the delicate scent of roses -

 

Her eyes popped open again. No, no. Kylo smelled like salt and musk and the goddamned forest floor. He did _not_ smell like roses. She turned her head, utterly distracted despite the fact that he was now sliding his hands into her jacket, helping to remove it and peppering kisses along the exposed strip of skin on her stomach at the same time.

 

“Fucking rose petals,” she growled and sat up, displacing Kylo and accidentally hitting his nose with one arm.

 

“Excuse me?” he managed through the hand holding his nose, looking bemused despite himself.

 

Rey flushed and glanced at him. “I’m sorry,” she sighed. “I just…”

 

“Don’t like roses?” he supplied after cautiously lowering his hand.

 

“Roses are ok. Roses being sacrificed to the heathen capitalist Saint Valentine are not ok.” She swung her legs around and got off the bed. Kylo did the same and began to pick the rose petals up off the comforter. Rey turned away, embarrassed, and began to check her hair for stray petals.

 

“Ah. Sorry,” Kylo responded. “I didn’t realize you don’t like the holiday.”

 

Rey froze. “Kylo...you didn’t...I mean.” She took a breath and turned to look at him. He continued to remove petals, a neutral expression on his face.  “This wasn’t your idea, was it?”

 

He glanced up at her and seemed to realize what she was trying to ask.

 

“Don’t worry, you haven’t completely crushed my feelings. I had nothing to do with this.” He smiled slightly and walked over to the door of what Rey assumed was the ensuite, and disappeared inside. His voice filtered back out to her.

 

“It must have been Lando’s idea.”

 

“Lando?” Rey questioned.

 

“This is his cottage.”

 

“Oh. I thought it was Airbnb.” She folded her hands behind her back and watched as Kylo exited the other room, sans rose petals in hand.

 

Kylo grinned. “I tried, trust me, but with Mistress Ina actually deigning to lead a class, nothing was available, even with it being the middle of winter. When I brought it up to my mom, she called up Lando for me.”

 

“So...have I met Lando?” Rey asked cautiously.

 

Kylo shook his head and stepped closer to her, placing his hands on her shoulders before running them down her arms.

 

“He’s technically my godfather, but I rarely see him. Even less often now that my father is gone.” A shadow fell over his eyes, but before Rey could pursue the ever elusive trail of a conversation to his past, he leaned in quickly and brushed his lips across her forehead before letting go of her and walking out of the room. Rey followed him.

 

Ha paused in the hallway to lift their bags and Rey reached out, taking hers from him.

 

“I’ve got it,” she murmured. He made a small humming noise and watched her appreciatively as she lifted the small case. Then he followed her back to the bedroom.

 

“So,” he began anew, “why do you hate Valentine’s Day?”

 

“I didn’t say I hate it,” Rey hedged some as she set her case on the bench set along one wall of the bedroom.

 

“You can be honest,” Kylo responded, opening up his own case and pulling out a couple of shirts to hang up. They would only be there three nights, but he really didn’t want to have to iron anything before their planned outings. He doubted Lando owned an iron. “I didn’t select this weekend as a gift because of the date. I chose it because I knew you’d be thrilled to meet ‘Our Lady Ina’, as you and Finn so obsequiously have dubbed her. The holiday has nothing to do with it.”  He walked over to the closet and found a couple of empty hangers. He turned back to Rey as he pulled the shirts onto the sleek wooden frames.

 

“I’ve never been fond of it as a holiday, myself, but I may have planned on buying you flowers while we explored the town tomorrow. If you’d expected more than that from me, however, I’m afraid you’d have been disappointed.”

 

Rey glanced up at him, her lower lip caught between her teeth.

 

“Really?” she asked, obviously skeptical.

 

He smiled and turned away to hang the shirts in the closet. “Really,” he replied. He stepped back as she walked over to him, a dress in hand. She reached past him and snagged an empty hanger and wrestled the pretty, floral print garment onto it.

 

“Well. Ok.” When she was done she shut the closet door and leaned against it. She let her gaze linger over him for a moment before she looked down at the floor.

 

“It’s fine, when you’re a child and it’s more about friendship, and exchanging little paper hearts and candies and everyone gets _something_. But then you grow up and expectations shift and before you know it, you and everyone else is convinced that if your partner doesn’t deliver flowers at your work and surprise you with some fancy meal or sweet, or something Hollywood romantic, that it can’t possibly be true love. It’s like, one day out of the year everyone loses their mind and completely forgets what real love feels like, or looks like.”  She took a breath. “I’m not saying it’s not a nice idea, to remember that special someone, but a failure to deliver what the media and capitalism has hyped up on February fourteenth shouldn’t make a person feel like what they have isn’t just as real and special as everyone else who remembered to get flowers, or can afford some grand gesture. It’s so unnecessarily stressful. Who needs that? Real life - real love - is stressful enough.”

 

She looked up at him and shrugged a little. “I’d just rather not celebrate the holiday at all. It’s a shit holiday, or at least, what modern society has made of it is. Love should be celebrated every day of the year, in a hundred thousand little ways.”

 

“You’re amazing,” Kylo said softly, and Rey rolled her eyes.

 

“No. You are,” he insisted, taking her by the shoulders again. “And if you never want to celebrate Valentine’s Day, I am happy to do just that with you, year after year.”

 

Rey felt her breath catch in her throat and she wondered if he realized what he’d just said. But then his arms were wrapping around her and he was spinning her around and they were falling back over, onto the blessedly rose petal-free bed. She found herself laughing along with him before laying her head on his chest. She could hear the steady thump-thump of his heart and it was the most comforting sound in the world.

 

“So,” Kylo said after a moment of lying there peacefully, “do you celebrate something else instead of Valentine’s Day? Or just ignore the whole thing?”

 

Rey snuggled against him further, enjoying the way she could feel the vibrations from his voice through his chest, along with his heartbeat. “I used to just ignore the whole thing - or I tried, anyway. But once I met Finn and Poe, that changed.”

 

“Why’s that?”

 

“Because they don’t celebrate it, either. Instead, they celebrate Arizona Statehood Day.”

 

Kylo laughed out loud at that, and Rey felt the rumbling all the way down to her toes. She grinned and lifted her head, using her hands on his chest as leverage to look up at him.

 

“I’m serious. Poe was born in Arizona and apparently that’s what his mom used to do, so he just kept it up even though he moved out of state.”

 

“I believe you,” he replied, angling his head on the pillows behind them so he could return her gaze. “So how do you celebrate Arizona Statehood Day, exactly?”

 

“Eat Southwestern food. Admire a cactus. Watch an old Western.”

 

Kylo grunted some and relaxed again. Rey followed suit and laid her head back down on his chest.

 

“Is that something you’d like us to do together? Or is it a friends things with Finn and Poe?” he asked after a moment.

 

Rey hesitated and felt one of his hands on her back, rubbing gentle circles there. She’d already shared more of her life with the man than she’d ever dreamed possible, in an incredibly short amount of time. What was one more tradition? They were irrevocably in each other’s lives now. Parting ways would already be nearly too much to bear. It nearly _was_ too much just a month and a half ago.

 

“We could try it out, if you like,” she murmured, then smiled despite her suddenly maudlin mood. “Even though Southwestern food and the Hamptons seem pretty incongruous.”

 

Kylo laughed again and his other arm came up to wrap her in a close embrace.

  
“Sweetheart, _everything_ and the Hamptons are incongruous.”

 

_________________________________________


End file.
